


Classical Economics For Dummies

by jonphaedrus



Category: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Economics, Family Bonding, Gen, Grocery Shopping, Jade Curtiss Is A Horrible Goose, Noodle Incidents, Very Bad Economics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:40:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22061218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: “Come along, and we shall go plumb the depths of the provider and the consumer equation with ourselves as the consumers, out to—“ and here Jade pulls from within his glove sleeve a single sheet of paper, folded over and covered in Tear and Guy’s meticulous handwriting. He brandishes it. “Purchase the remainder of the grocery list!”
Comments: 14
Kudos: 39





	Classical Economics For Dummies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hydrangeo](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=hydrangeo).



> happy holidays, hydrangeo! 
> 
> this was also coincidentally one of my requests for talesmas: i love the genre of jade-curtiss-tries-and-fails-spectacularly-to-imitate-something-not-unlike-a-father, so i had a LOT of fun writing this. it's been a few years since i played tota, so i'm going to let that be my excuse for why this doesn't have anything even resembling a set timeline and is probably somewhat out of character.
> 
> blessings of the new year upon you, and may my extremely poor grasp of economics bring you better luck than these three.

Luke worries like a child with a loose tooth over the apple incident Engeve, feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed about it for the better part of two weeks. He doesn’t really know _why_ (not yet, although he will later) but he feels like a total asshole in a way that he’s not...really used to feeling like a total asshole. It shouldn’t be a big deal the way it is. It’s not a big deal (everyone has either forgotten it or is pretending to) but it’s a big deal _to him_.

Luke doesn’t mention it to anybody. The absolute last thing he wants is for someone to point out to him (again) that he did something wrong. He’s going to bottle that one up in his chest until he dies.

“You’re upset about something,” Ion says one night, when he catches Luke sorting through their provisions. He jumps, almost drops the apple he’s holding, fumbles to catch it, and immediately starts considering the merits of hopping the pile of stuff and running off into the night to never be seen again. He _doesn’t_ want anybody catching him doing this servant stuff—but he also doesn’t want to look like an idiot and have Tear talk to him like he’s seven years old again.

So he goes for the totally casual. “No,” Luke doesn’t look up from the couple of loaves of bread he’s counting, the bags of pasta, the apples that roll at the bottom of the canvas container. “I’m fine.”

Ion doesn’t leave. He keeps standing there, hands folded behind his back, just at the peripheral of Luke’s vision, waiting. Silently. Luke continues to count apples. He doesn’t turn around to look at Ion, or ask him what he wants, or rise to the bait. He just hunches his shoulders up, glares into the bag, and keeps. Counting. Apples. He remembers how much they had cost in Engeve, so he’s been keeping track of their total gald spent on food to give the bill to his parents once they get back to Baticul. Add the apples to the pasta, and the inn costs, and—

“You’re very focused on that. What are you doing?”

Lost in his calculations, Luke has forgotten about Ion still standing there, and he jumps, bangs his elbow into the hilt of his sword, yelps in pain. “None of your business!” Luke snaps, finally, rounding on Ion. “Just—don’t you have better stuff to do than bother me? Go away!”

Ion stares back at him, and there’s a look to his face that makes Luke immediately want to shrivel up and die. He wants the ground to open up and eat him whole.

Ion is his friend. Ion is his _friend_ , and Luke’s just yelled at him—but more than that, Ion is the _Fon Master,_ and more important than just about anybody else Luke has ever met. Including his parents, and Natalia, and the King. And Luke’s just yelled at him. His expression isn’t upset or sad, like he’s hurt Luke yelled at him. It’s more—closed off, like the part that Luke’s gotten used to, his friend Ion who can’t cook and can’t jump rope and frequently trips over his own feet, his friend Ion who laughs really hard at all of Guy’s really bad puns, has shut down. Instead the Fon Master is there, cold and sharp, rebuffed one too many times.

Oops.

Luke doesn’t really know what to do. There’s a word that’s taking shape on his tongue, a taste to the tonalities of _sorry_ that even considering articulating locks his teeth and his jaw. He hates saying sorry. He doesn’t need to apologize, because Ion _was_ bothering him while he was busy, and now he’s lost track of his calculations, and he also feels bad, and he wouldn’t feel bad if Ion hadn’t bothered him in the first place. So this is all Ion’s fault, but Ion isn’t going to apologize because his face has gotten all hard, and if Luke _makes_ him apologize then Anise is going to kick his ass and Anise really will do it and—

“I’m trying to calculate how much the food costs, all right?” Luke snaps it out, defensive, before he can even think through the ramifications of his admission. He knows he’s blushing and that just makes him even more aggravated, because he can’t keep anything off his stupid face. “I don’t want to owe Tear anything after we get home, so I want to make sure my parents pay her back.”

Luke doesn’t dare look up at Ion’s face, but he hears Ion make a soft, pleased sighing noise. The tension in his shoulders and back immediately begins to ease. “Luke...that’s really sweet!”

“It’s _not_ ,” he insists, still waspish. The last thing Luke needs is Ion blabbing about this to Anise, who would probably use it to blackmail him until the end of time. “My parents don’t like owing people stuff. After what happened when I was a kid, they never know when someone could use something against them again. So I just...want to make sure I don’t owe her a favor.”

“That’s really nice of you!” Luke relaxes the rest of the way, looks up at his friend, finds Ion grinning at him. “I’ve always wanted to surprise a friend like that, but I’m not any good at keeping secrets.”

Immediately Luke relaxes. Yes. This hole thing is a surprise gift, that’s a much better way to look at it. He nods along, agreeing with Ion totally, reversing his thought process. Luke is completely lost in the weeds when Ion’s voice breaks through and he hears, processes at last— “Okay, I’ll go change and then let’s go straight to the market.”

“Wait,” Luke’s mouth and brain finally catch up with his nodding head, but it’s too late. Ion has already turned and left, and all he can do without making himself look even more like an idiot is to follow along like he _totally_ knows what they’re doing.

It ends as badly as expected, and Anise has to come rescue them. Luke mentally puts The Market Disaster next to The Engeve Mistake and silently promises to himself to never have this come up _ever again_.

Ion, equally chagrined, seems to agree with him.

Easier said than done: somehow or other, Jade finds out about The Market Disaster. It’s not too hard to guess at _who_ spilled the beans on them—Anise wears her cat-smile all the time, and it never reaches her eyes, and she and Jade whisper secrets literally every other breath.

The _how_ or _why_ don’t matter. What _does_ matter is that one afternoon in Baticul, just when Luke thinks he’s made a clean break from still being the idiot he started out this journey as (before Akzeriuth, so, no, in fact, he has a long way to go), Jade clears his throat.

They all turn to face him like a group of chastened school children about to be given a verbal lashing by their schoolmaster. Luke glares at Jade’s head like he could melt a hole between his eyebrows. Jade pushes his glasses up, the lenses glinting in the sunlight, and Luke imagines breaking them. Just to see what Jade would do.

Jade waits until everyone else has grown visibly antsy, shifting back and forth silently, trying not to make eye contact, one or two loud gulps audible between the cleared throats. He waits even longer, until the silence is so thin that Luke is starting to wonder if Anise might kill him just to spare the rest of them the maddening torture that is Jade-holding-up-a-shoe-he’s-about-to-drop.

 _Finally_ , he speaks.

“Luke, Ion, if I might have a moment of your time?”

Luke immediately wonders if he could outrun Jade. Ion has grabbed his elbow and is towing him over to the Colonel. Luke feels his feet moving on their own, without his input, one step after another across the dozen steps between them. He could break away and start sprinting. He knows Baticul better than Jade does: he could duck into an old service hallway, he could climb one of the elevators. Or he could distract Jade. Point to the side, yell, _look is that Dist?_ and then just start motoring. Or he could claim diplomatic immunity, or—

“I appreciate your quick attention,” Jade’s voice is so dry it could kill someone with dehydration. “We’ll catch up, no need to wait on our account,” he says, speaking to the rest of their companions. They dutifully traipse off, and Luke can hear Anise snickering from here.

The next time Luke gets the chance, he’s going to tie her pigtails in a knot. Preferably around something so she gets stuck there.

“I heard,” Jade continues, in that stentorian fashion that he gets his voice into when he’s trying to be Super Extra Serious, “About your Market Escapade.”

Luke groans.

“Now, now.” Jade raises his hands, huffing a laugh under his breath. “There’s no need to be ashamed. It was quite brave of the both of you to venture out like that. That said, according to my source—“ He was going to put mud in her hair. Or maybe peanut butter. “You both are far from facile with the concept of, as it were, _economics._ ”

Luke freezes. He glances at Ion, who is nodding sagely. Luke glances back to Jade, who is still watching the both of them with the inscrutable, asshole Jade-face he gets when he’s smug and also knows he knows something you don’t know. For a moment—no more than a heartbeat—Luke considers asking what _economics_ is.

A tableaux plays across his mind’s eye: Jade smugly pushing his glasses up and grinning, eyes invisible behind his evil-glinting lenses, shrugging as he nonchalantly explains _economics_ “in terms that even a child, or perhaps a pet rappig” could understand.

Luke immediately starts nodding sagely in time with Ion so that they look for all the world like two of those bobbing birds weighted with water.

“Wonderful!” Jade claps his hands together. “Let us take your nascent knowledge of this wonderful and complex art and investigate supply and demand at the source: the _free market itself_. There is no finer instructor than experience, and Baticul is a perfect petri dish. We shall plumb the depths of the provider and the consumer equation with ourselves as the consumers, out to—“ Jade pulls from within his glove a single sheet of paper, folded over and covered in Tear and Guy’s meticulous handwriting. He brandishes it. “Purchase the remainder of the grocery list!”

As soon as Jade spins on his heel to leave, Ion turns to Luke. His face is frozen in a rictus grin that makes him look about ten years older, his eyes glazed. “I,” he whispers, and the frantic note in his voice scares Luke more than just about any weird bullshit Jade could _ever_ get up to, “Have no idea what any of that means.”

“We’re going to die,” Luke replies, just as quiet. “This is how we die. We’re dead.”

They Are Doomed.

The main thoroughfare of shops is in the middle district of Baticul, housed inside the Colosseum entrance. Luke has been there before, albeit briefly, and never without a much larger escort than one Fon Master and one, definitely not responsible, “adult”.

Jade strolls in through the open doors like he owns the place. He is still in full uniform. Full, Malkuth army, uniform.

The whole room freezes. Shopkeepers stop what they’re doing. The guards at the inner doors stiffen, pikes bumping and plate rustling. The few citizens who are out shopping come to a halt, nearly tripping over their own feet.

Someone drops a shield and the rattling bang of it as it hits the flagstones echoes in the spartan chamber, loud enough that it makes Luke wince. He wants to shrivel up into himself and die. Ion’s face is carefully blank, but Luke can tell the stares are unnerving him, getting to him.

Jade doesn’t seem to even notice. Then again: it’s Jade.

“All right,” Jade says, his brisk pace uninterrupted, leading them to the back corner of the arcade where the grocer is, “Let’s set aside our armor and weapon purchases until our companions rejoin us, as I’m sure there’d be a great fuss if we assumed anyone’s tastes. Fresh produce and the like it is.” He gestures Luke and Ion over to join him, pulling the shopping list free one more and unfolding it with a single flick of his wrist, a precise flourish.

He clears his throat.

“Now let’s see here...” Out of curiosity, Luke leans over and peers at the shopping list. It’s fairly straightforward: rice, bread, lettuce, tomatoes, pasta, salt, pepper, dried fish, curry powder, curry powder, curry powder—

“Half of that list is curry powder,” Luke points out. Jade quickly folds the list, tucks it away with a derisive sniff.

“This is the first step on your road of understanding,” Jade replies, and he’s so condescending Luke seriously considers biting and/or punching him, “It is _always_ cheaper to buy in bulk.” As if to prove his point, Jade sashays up to the counter where the grocer is staring at him like he’s got two heads.

Luke and Ion glance at each other in silence. Neither of them says anything. They turn back to Jade and the grocer.

“Good afternoon!” The grocer continues to stare at Jade in mute horror. “I hope you’ve no qualms for me using your establishment as an example in my lesson this afternoon. I’m teaching my young companions about market economics.” Jade pushes up his glasses, folds his hands behind his back. “Do you carry curry powder?”

“No.”

Jade blinks.

“Ah, of course. I expected nothing less.” There’s a moment, just a split-second, of hesitation. “Curry is not a particularly Kimlascan delicacy. Do you do special orders?”

“No.”

Jade adjusts his glasses and points to a sign on the wall. The sign says _Special Order 10% Per Item_. “Is the 10% surcharge per individual item, or for each different thing added to the special order?”

Stony silence.

Jade sniffs.

“You see,” he continues, turning back to Luke and Ion, “With prices such as this the cost can be prohibitive. In Baticul, there is no high demand for curry powder—therefore, there is no supply of it. Providers gain nothing in supplying something that consumers do not demand. My individual need for curry powder, however, has introduced a demand for the item, albeit a limited one. A limited supply needs to exist to fulfill that demand, turning into profit for the grocer, as he—the provider—is able to charge me extra to get something he does not usually stock. Thus comes the importance of the surcharge: if the additional cost is for each item purchased, then it is cheaper to either not buy here or to buy only the required amount. If it is for each _type_ of item, then it is far more cost-effective to buy the maximum available. That would be purchasing in bulk.

“There are often even discounts for bulk purchases,” Jade turns back tothe grocer. He points at another sign. This one says _15% off above 30 items_. “Does the discount apply to special orders?”

“No.”

“I must beg your forgiveness, as my eyes are rather weak and may very well deceive me, but does the fine print on that sign not in fact say _discount applies on special orders_?”

“No.”

A muscle in Jade’s jaw and temple tightens. Luke gulps. He shies back, shifting away from Jade as if to say _I’m not with this man and I have never met him in my life_.

“I must say,” the Colonel’s voice is acidic, “You make an exceedingly poor salesman. You and your establishment are ill matches indeed with a title as fine as _Maestro_. You simply _must_ assuage my curiosity, I insist—“ He pushes his glasses up, gives his worst smile. “Was whoever read your birth Score incompetent, or did they just hate your parents?”

“Oh no,” Ion whispers, and Luke grimaces, shuts his eyes.

“I panicked,” it’s the first thing Luke says when Guy finally finds them, thrown all together into a holding cell at the back of the Royal Guard barracks. Guy, arms crossed, glaring, does not so much as blink. “They asked me if I was Luke fon Fabre and I panicked.”

“Really,” Jade puts in, from where he’s sprawled out across the single bed in the cell, arms crossed behind his head and one foot propped on his bent knee, “It could have gone much worse. Imagine what could have happened if they asked Fon Master Ion who he was.”

Ion has taken the bucket most likely meant to be a bedpan, turned it upside down, and sat on it. “It would have been quite serious,” he agrees, totally calm. Placid. Undisturbed water. “Especially if word of my arrest reached Anise.” There’s the briefest crack in his façade, and a look of pure, sheer, unadulterated terror passes over his face.

“No thank you,” Luke replies, arms crossed where he’s sulking on the stool in the corner. “We’ll be in enough trouble if Natalia finds out as it is.”

Guy continues to stare at them.

He’s tapping his foot. Very, very slowly. A quiet _tak tak tak_ that resounds in the otherwise-empty cellblock. His jaw tenses. He shuts his eyes, breathes out slowly. “I don’t,” he begins, keeping his voice steady with the kind of patience that you can only gain after years spent chasing an unrepentantly unpleasant teenager around and/or several hours in Jade Curtiss’ company, “Want to know. Anything. The less I know the better. I don’t care. Luke, Fon Master, you can both come with me. I’m removing you on the assumption that your involvement was entirely involuntary.”

“It was,” they both reply at the same time.

Jade doesn’t sit up. “And what about me? My dear Master Cecil, surely you cannot find _me_ guilty of any wrongdoing.”

Guy points one accusatory finger at Jade. “Your glasses are broken and so is your nose.”

“Touché. As always, you are a _master_ at the art of succinct explanations of the obvious.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you can stay right here and rot while you think about whatever thing you did. Which I’m sure you deserved to get punched for.”

“I did,” Jade concedes, a laugh bubbling merrily in his voice.

Guy squeezes his eyes shut. Shakes his head. “I’m so glad you never had children,” he growls, and stalks off to go find a guard to let Luke and Ion out.

“We are never telling anybody about this,” Luke says, and both Ion and Jade nod.

"Least of all Anise," Ion adds.

“Agreed,” Jade thirds fervently. “ _Definitely_ not Anise.”


End file.
